Cassia skittered from my touch like a bug from a boot, eyes enormous. While she hugged the wall, trying to catch her breath, I went past her and climbed the stairs.
Above I found a single, L-shaped room that stretched from the front of the building to the back, with a stone pallet built into a wall under a window. The shorter end of the L opened onto the roof of the wine shop below, wooden shutters leaning against the wall to close off the balcony in the evening.
The room held a table and two rough-hewn stools. A shelf, empty, had been fastened to one wall, but looked as though it would tumble down from any heavy tread on the stairs. That was all.
Cassia entered behind me, her footsteps light. From somewhere within the folds of her robes, she retrieved a wax tablet, the kind with wooden covers that folded in two, protecting the wax inside.
She removed a stylus that had been tucked inside the tablet and made a notation. As I could read no words, I had no idea what it said.
“A scribe does more than write letters.” Cassia’s voice was faint, but she spoke as one bent on explaining. “I can keep records, read and negotiate contracts, balance books and make sure all moneys owed are paid as well as all moneys owed to you.”
I had no money at all. Unlike some fighters, I had not stashed away my portion of prize winnings or fees earned from guarding to buy my freedom. My price was so high I’d known there was no point. I used the winnings to enjoy myself instead, staving off boredom until I had to fight for my life once more.
“No moneys are owed to me,” I said.
Cassia studied her tablet. “Your benefactor requests that you seek employment in order to feed yourself and pay the rent on this apartment. What little coin has been left for meals will only last the day, if that.”
A very odd sort of benefactor then.
I was growing weary, first from the excess of drinking and debauchery last night, and then from finding my circumstances so changed. I needed to lie on my back for a time, to think, to sleep. I suppressed a yawn.
“Who is our benefactor?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” When I took a step toward her, Cassia raised a hand in alarm. “I truly do not. Hesiodos would not tell me.”
I continued past her and peered through the opening to the roof. Our view showed me the narrow street as it spilled down the hill into the main thoroughfare beyond.
“So I am to live here, find my own employment, pay the rent, and wait for instruction?”
“Yes.” Cassia sounded relieved I’d grasped it all.
It was strange, but by no means the most strange thing people had hired me to do.
I supposed I could walk out the door, tramp through the streets of Rome, and turn my back on this benefactor. I was a freedman now … I looked at the wooden sword adhered to my hand.
Or was I?
“Was my freedom registered?” One had to go to the Forum Romanum when one freed a slave, to have it officially recorded that the slave was free.
“Hesiodos said so.”
Cassia began to unwind her palla. Out came more things as she unwrapped herself—a small leather case, a few scrolls, a bottle of ink and a pen. She laid them out in a neat row on the table.
“Do you have dinner and wine in there too?” I asked her.
Cassia folded her palla and hung it from a peg near the door without bothering to answer. She opened the case on the table, lifted a small piece of papyrus from it, and held it up to read. “This declares the man known as Leonidas the Spartan, gladiator, is a freedman of Rome.” She glanced at me over the paper. “You are not from Sparta,” she observed. “Or anywhere Greek.”
“I don’t know where I come from. Aemil thought up that name.”
“What is your real name?” Cassia asked with the first glimmer of curiosity I’d seen in her.
“I forgot that long ago. I’m Leonidas now.” I yawned again, this time not suppressing it. “I will sleep.” I moved toward the stone pallet, reflecting I had no blankets or mattress, but I’d slept on worse.
“With the rudis?”
I stared down at the sword, my fingers stiff around the hilt. I tried to open my hand, but could not.
“It seems so.”
Cassia walked to me, footfalls soft. “Give it to me, and I will put it somewhere safe.”
I swallowed. “I can’t.”
For the first time, the fear left her. “Why not?”
I raised my hand, the sword coming with it. “I try, but I cannot let go. I slept with it last night, and my hand is now too cramped to open.”
“Hmm.” She peered at my swollen knuckles, dark from the sun and crossed with scars and fresh scabs from yesterday’s fight.
Cassia reached out a tentative finger and touched my hand. She did it rapidly, a quick brush, as though expecting a jolt to knock her across the room.
When I did nothing but stand in place, she touched me again, less hesitantly. “I will unbend your fingers.”
I did not think she could. My strength would overwhelm hers without effort, and if I could not force my hand open, I doubted she’d be able to.
Cassia rested her hand over mine, but instead of pulling at my fingers, she rubbed.
The softness of her touch surprised me. I’d never had anyone touch me like this—I’d been massaged by massive men digging soreness out of my muscles, or women bringing me to a cockstand, but never a light caress that tingled warmth across my skin.
Slowly, slowly, my fingers relaxed, and then they loosened. My thumb unlocked, and with it, my death grip on the sword.
As soon as my hand went slack, Cassia slid the hilt out of my grasp.
Ice cold fear hit me. I started to lunge for the sword, but Cassia had already turned away, and I brushed empty air.
“I will put it here.” Cassia laid the sword on the hanging shelf. “You can reach it at any time.”
She was humoring me, but I experienced a profound sense of relief. The rudis was where I could touch it, and remind myself what it meant.
Cassia came back to me, her hands clasped over her long linen stolla. “What …” The word trailed off, and she swallowed. “What do you wish from me?”
She whispered the question, and I heard, through my haze, her fear return. Fear that went to the bone. I knew such fear, had experienced it myself.
I took the final steps to the pallet and nearly fell onto it. I turned my head so I could look at her with a single open eye. “Do you want dinner?” It was well past time for breakfast.
Cassia had gone wan, but she gave me a faint nod.
“Fetch it from the popina we passed,” I ordered. “Bring me bread if there is any.”
Cassia remained frozen in place, her very dark hair falling in curls about her face. She was pretty, in a way, in spite of her crooked nose and thin lips.
That was the last thought I had before oblivion took me.
I dreamed. Regulus fought me, rage in his eyes. My sword and arm guard were gone, and his blade jabbed and jabbed at me until I bled from a hundred holes.
His sword rose, ready to dive straight into my eye.
I roared up to meet him, grabbing the descending arm in a merciless grip …
And found myself looking into the terrified brown eyes of Cassia.
Chapter 3